I got really interested in tea a few years ago. I needed something that was not water, that I could drink frequently with (ideally) no additives/calories. I eventually found my way to tea, and tried lots of different teas (only ever really seeing green and black growing up). This got me interested in loose leaf tea, which kept leading me to teavana.

I got a perfect tea maker as a gift a couple years back and have been using it on and off in excess since. Most of my teas have come from teavana when someone I knew worked there and I got everything for ~60% off. I have a few LARGE cans of tea left, but now that I'm out of college I'm trying to drink it regularly again.

I'm not a big fan of teavana's attitude or prices, and I see myself running out of tea eventually now that I'm putting a dent in the large quantities I've purchased. I've also read their teas (which I like) are not very high quality compared to other places.

Part 2 (this is the real question):Adagio has free shipping through cyber Monday (tomorrow), I"m going to order some samples to find out what I want to place a larger order of later as I run out of tea. Help me find teas I will like.

I'm looking for cheaper/similar alternatives to the following:

1. Monkey picked oolong (I've read this is a TKY). I love the taste, I love getting 5-7 steeps. I hate the price. Can anyone recommend something with a similar taste at a better price?

2. Raspberry Soiree (a green tea with a raspberry flavor). I like this tea iced with honey. I can get 3 steeps. Can anyone compare this tea to the Adagio Rasberry Green?

3. Blueberry Bliss tastes great and gives ~3 steeps. Great iced with honey. Looking for a similar taste.

4. Weight to go (says its a PU-ERH) tastes great iced with a little honey and is supposed to be healthy/boost metabolism. Looking for a similar taste and/or tea with similar benefits.

5. Jasmine Dragon pearls, I think I saw this exact thing on adagio, can anyone compare them? Any cheaper teas with similar taste?

Any help would be appreciated or any other "Must try" teas I can grab a cheap sample of with free shipping would be great. Mostly looking for some confirmation on similar flavors before I order things that sound the same.

I'm not super fond of a lot of the roibos, black/earl gray, or mate teas in flavor and I try to avoid caffeine.

There are a lot of great tea stores online which are very affordable. I like Yunnan Sourcing U.S., Jas-E Tea, Mountain Tea and etc. Those are just a few. I'm sure others will tell you about their favorites! Good luck.

I was mostly looking for suggestions of things to try from adagio while I could grab free shipping. Those sites look great and I'll probably take a look at them as I get more serious into tea though

For anyone who is curious what I found on adagio:

For "monkey picked" (TKY), and "jasmine pearls" I saw Adagio had what looked like the exact same things for slightly cheaper than teavana (presumably fresher) that I may get to compare eventually. Since I'm mainly looking for a cheaper alternative I got 1 cheap oolong and 1 cheap green to compare. I like the health benefits of oolong and if this one tastes fine, then it will fill the role well. Since I am after the health benefits I also got flavored oolongs to try (almond, coconut, vanilla and a vanilla green). Assuming the health benefits are the same, these may taste even better for constant drinking.

"Blueberry bliss" I learned was a blueberry rooibos. I saw some kind of fruity rooibos available, but no blueberry ones and that is the flavor I'm after. I got a white blueberry to compare it too.

For "weight to go" I could not find anything similar.

"Raspberry soiree" has a bunch of contenders. I got a raspberry green, but then I found a cherry and pomegranate green to compare it too.